Archive for March, 2013

This one is a fairly minor update in the main, but it fixes a number of level design issues late in the game where doors would turn out to be one-way and trap you if you didn’t use your suicide pill. Shattered Haven is something that people who are playing it really seem to love, […]

Exodus Of The Machine is a new strategic journey game by Arcen Games, set in the universe of the cult classic AI War: Fleet Command. Lead a team trapped on a hostile planet and desperately pursuing a threat which could destroy humanity outright. Vicious predators, clashing armies, and political intrigue stand in your way. None […]

This one is a relatively small release focusing on balance issues and fixing a few bugs introduced in recent versions. We also addressed some of the longstandingly high-voted mantis issues. There would be more but we’ve been working hard on another project (that we might drop some hints on tomorrow, we’ll see). Of course it’s […]

This one has a variety of tweaks and fixes in it, as well as a new vehicle: a fast version of the hot air balloon for use in Alden Ridge! Several levels have also had some new hints added to them to keep their puzzles from being quite so devilish. Shattered Haven is something that […]

Indie Royale has rolled out The Mighty Bundle, included in which is our addictive puzzle game Tidalis! You can pick the game up, along with five additional games, now through April 4th. The rest of the bundle’s titles are pretty enticing as well, with Avadon: The Black Fortress, Derrick the Deathfin, Waveform, Zafehouse: Diaries, and […]

This one doesn’t really contain anything individually notable, but rather a laundry list of small fixes and tweaks. A lot of them have been centered around Stantonsburg, hence the name of the release. That town has a mind of its own, and I don’t just mean when it’s going all scary on you, the player. […]

This one includes a new boss fight that involves… well, eyeball snakes and guns, as I suppose you could guess. This is actually the boss level that you can watch me design in the level editor in our recent Let’s Play videos. There are also a number of fixes and tweaks included in this update, […]

If you missed the announcement on our main news blog, Shattered Haven 1.0 is now out! You can pick it up on Steam, Gog.com, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, or the Arcen site. In this below video, I walk you through parts of two overworld areas, and completes three levels in the Snow Hill section. For […]

As Shattered Haven soldiers on from Monday’s launch, Steam has rolled out a big time, 400+ indie game sale that has Arcen’s catalog front and center with some major discounts. Here’s the breakdown: Valley 1 & 2 Dual Pack 75% Off [Particularly Enticing!] AI War, Alien Bundle and all Expansions 75% Off Tidalis 75% Off Shattered […]

This one is the second release of the day. Based on some feedback that we got from a member of the press whom I greatly trust, I realized that our tutorial was just too darn long. There were some parts where players were getting lost even in the alpha and beta, and the whole thing […]

This one has a litany of small fixes and tweaks, and a couple of cool new features. First off, when you’re walking you no longer fall into pits or water. Handy when you’re navigating tight ledges while not being pursued by angry grays Secondly, when you scroll through items in your inventory, it now shows […]

This one is our first post-release update. It includes the ability for you to use both the analog stick and the d-pad on your game controllers interchangeably, and it allows you to create new levels directly in the level editor rather than making you initialize them in the file system first. Also it has a […]

This one adds Core (MkV) versions of the 18 fleet ships that previously maxed out at MkIV. So you can now get those from Core Fabricators. Abuse of Core Shield Bearers may result in… well, I guess you don’t have much to fear if you have Core Shield Bearers. The bulk of this release answers […]

Arcen Games is excited to announce the launch of Shattered Haven, now available for PC and Mac on Steam, GOG, GamersGate, and Green Man Gaming; as well as directly through the Arcen Store. To celebrate the release, the game is on sale for 25% off until Friday, March 29th. A launch trailer for the game […]

Recently we put up a couple of gameplay videos, and hopefully that helps answer a lot of the questions right there. But if you’re not into videos, or still have questions, read on. Story-Driven StructureWhen you first start a new game, it takes you through a brief tutorial level that also contains a goodly bit […]

This one is uncharacteristically gargantuan, even by Arcen standards. Josh, Zack, and I have all been working all weekend to get all this finished up, and in particular Sunday was an 18 hour day for Josh and Zack, and so far looks like a 25 hours day for me. But it’s all worth it — […]

This one is actually fairly small, though it does have some good new story stuff in there, and more of Alden Ridge has been implemented. But the big thing is fixing a bunch of exceptions that would be thrown whenever you encountered NPC3. Now that’s fixed, and all the NPCs have their final graphics (though […]

This one has a huge metric ton of stuff in it, including a lot of work on the final boss (still not done yet), story cutscenes and so forth all through the game, and even a new weapon that many people won’t find on their first playthrough. Probably my favorite thing in this particular release […]

This one has a bunch more in-engine cutscenes of varying scope and importance, and several new comic panel cutscenes without voiceover (the voiceovers are used for key emotional scenes, but the comic panels are also used for area transitions to help set the sense of what an area is by giving you a painted view […]

Shattered Haven goes to 1.0 on Monday, March 18th, 2013! Get the game from the Arcen site, Steam, Gog.com, GamersGate, or Green Man Gaming! An Environmental Puzzle Game About Family, Grit, and Survival Grays roam the land, largely in the absence of human interference. These aren’t your typical Zed — theirs is a very different […]

This one has a couple of new in-engine cutscenes (as opposed to comic panel cutscenes). There’s a goodly number of both remaining to do, and I had hoped to get more of that done today, but instead there was just a huge wash of minor bugs and polish stuff I wanted to get done so […]

This one is the second release of the day. It has a number of fixes and tweaks that are nice, but nothing too major. The big thing this time around is our work on implementing/polishing more story and voiceovers and comic panels, etc. We still have more than a little bit to do over the […]

This one is the first of two releases for today. It includes one critical bugfix where you couldn’t always pick up items correctly in the last version, which is the main reason this was pushed out. But it also has other bugfixes and tweaks, a new cutscene, and four new music tracks. Also improvements to […]

This one includes a ton of inventory improvements, makes the follower NPC invulnerable, and improves several levels as well as making the “sliding around objects” logic work better. More to come soon. Enjoy! This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the […]

This one revamps the Dark Spire minor faction and does a balance overhaul on Starships, notably adding a long-requested new important capturable structure: The Advanced Starship Constructor. For the Dark Spire:they should still be just as influential upon the galaxy once truly unleashed (in fact, more influential due to improved “what do I do now?” […]

This one is actually the fifth update that we’ve done since beta started three days ago. However, this is the first one that is getting its own post; I was just in too much of a hurry with everything going on to post about the other releases, despite the fact that they had significant improvements […]

Valley 2 1.003 is out now, if you hadn’t heard. As we let the game breathe a bit, our focus shifts to Shattered Haven’s official launch later this month (March 18th, to be exact). Before that, however, we wanted to highlight all the coverage Valley 2 (and company) has seen in the past month — […]

This one addresses a few minor issues that had collected, including a couple of annoying things with the ending cutscene of the game. The largest thing overall in this one is that Swamp Castles now work properly in actually granting your NPCs speed bonuses on the world map. Enjoy! This is a standard update that […]

About Arcen (Ar-ken) Games

Originally known for our unusual and highly effective approach to RTS artificial intelligence in our debut title AI War: Fleet Command, we have since branched out into many other genres and styles of games.

As you can tell by browsing our catalog of titles, our interests are eclectic, and we have a particular affinity for blurring the lines between unlikely genres.